Concept
Harami
Harami, also known as harami cross, is a Chart & Candlestick Patterns concept. The Library holds 2 implementations, each one a working definition you can pull into Quant.
Top Harami indicators
2 total
What is a Harami?
A harami is a two-candle candlestick pattern in which the second candle's real body sits entirely inside the first candle's real body: a wide-range candle followed by a small one that fails to extend the move. The name is Japanese for pregnant, after the shape of a large body carrying a smaller one. After a decline, a large bearish body holding a small inside body is a bullish harami; after an advance, the mirror is a bearish harami. When the second candle is a doji, the pattern is a harami cross, conventionally the stronger hesitation signal.
The harami is defined on real bodies, which distinguishes it from the inside bar, defined on the full high-to-low range. It is also the mirror image of the engulfing pattern: engulfing is expansion against the prior candle, harami is contraction after it. A harami marks a loss of momentum, not a completed reversal, so most treatments wait for a later candle to break the small body's range before acting.
How traders use it
- As an early reversal warning after an extended move, acted on only when a following candle closes beyond the harami's range in the reversal direction.
- As a de-risking cue for existing positions: a harami or harami cross after a long run is a common prompt to tighten stops or take partial profits rather than to reverse outright.
- As part of pattern-scanning logic, where the body-inside-body definition is easy to compute and is then filtered by trend context and location before being treated as a signal.
Related concepts · Candlestick catalog
Concept family
Chart & Candlestick Patterns
84 concepts mapped · 46 in the Library
Harami FAQ
What is the difference between a harami and an inside bar?
Containment is measured differently. A harami requires the second candle's real body (open to close) to sit inside the first candle's real body; the wicks may poke outside. An inside bar requires the entire range, high to low, to sit inside the prior bar's range. Every inside bar whose body is also contained qualifies as a harami, but many haramis are not inside bars.
Is a harami bullish or bearish?
It depends on what it follows. A small body inside a large bearish candle after a decline is a bullish harami; a small body inside a large bullish candle after an advance is a bearish harami. In both cases the pattern only signals that momentum stalled. Most traders wait for a following candle to break the pattern's range before reading it as a reversal.
Build Harami your way.
Quant writes, tests, and refines it with you — then it runs on LuxAlgo charting or ports to TradingView.